Dickinson College Dickinson Scholar Student Honors Theses By Year Student Honors Theses Spring 5-17-2020 K-Pop Connection: Maintaining Fandom Loyalty in K-Pop and V Live Amanda Xiong Dickinson College Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.dickinson.edu/student_honors Part of the Korean Studies Commons, and the Music Commons Recommended Citation Xiong, Amanda, "K-Pop Connection: Maintaining Fandom Loyalty in K-Pop and V Live" (2020). Dickinson College Honors Theses. Paper 379. This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Dickinson Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator. For more information, please contact [email protected]. K-Pop Connection: Maintaining Fandom Loyalty in K-Pop and V Live Amanda Xiong Senior Thesis Department of East Asian Studies Dickinson College May 6, 2020 Xiong 2 Introduction “It’s almost like a drug—companies keep giving just a little bit more to maintain interest and fans always come back.” - Alice, female 23-year-old K-pop fan from America Korean popular music, more commonly known as K-pop, is a smaller branch of the Hallyu Wave. Hallyu refers to the international success of Korean popular cultural products such as film, music, television, radio, fashion, and computer games.1 In recent years, K-pop has seen a tremendous rise in global popularity as more and more K-pop artists attempt to leave their mark on the Western music scene. However, the reasons for this success continue to elude scholars. Some, such as Solee Shin, believe that the answer lies in the way K-pop companies conduct their business and marketing strategies to appeal to fandoms. I am interested in the tension between K- pop companies and fans, specifically fandoms as a whole. This interest in K-pop fandom came about due to my own experience as a K-pop fan. As a fan for several years, I noticed certain aspects of K-pop fandoms differed greatly from fans of North American artists and I wanted to explore this topic more in depth. I was specifically interested in the power fandoms held, as they are the driving force behind maintaining longevity for a K-pop group’s career. These questions prompted my investigation into how do K-pop companies build and maintain fandom loyalty, specifically in North America. How influential is the role of livestreaming platforms, such as V Live, in this process? Are livestreaming platforms significant factors in maintaining fandom loyalty? 1 Eunyong Jung, “New Wave Formations: K-Pop Idols, Social Media, and the Remaking of the Korean Wave.” In Hallyu 2.0: The Korean Wave in the Age of Social Media, ed. Nojin Kwak and Youngju Ryu, (University of Michigan Press, 2015), 74. Xiong 3 In order to investigate how K-pop management companies maintain fandom loyalty in North America I interviewed five K-pop fans, two from Canada and three from the United States. As the interviews progressed, a few variables became abundantly clear. I first noted a wide spectrum of K-pop fans. Some fans were very involved in fandom mechanics and possessed a great deal of knowledge as to how K-pop companies operate and market their groups, while others considered themselves to be more casual fans who enjoy the music genre. The second thing that I discovered was that each fan experience remains deeply personal despite being contained within the robotic framework that K-pop companies operate in. Each fan experience, as described, was vastly different from that of other fans. For example, some fans became K-pop fans because they were introduced to K-pop by a sibling while others stumbled upon the music by chance in a YouTube video. The K-pop content each fan chose to interact with varied. At the same time, many fans said that even though they have not been able to meet a K-pop idol, they continue to feel an intimate bond with them. Based on these findings, I argue that a key factor and common denominator in maintaining fan loyalty in North America lies in the speed and consistency in which companies upload content and the ways in which companies utilize online apps, specifically livestreaming platforms, to foster a virtual personal connection between K-pop idols and their fans. To provide the necessary background information, this paper will begin with a brief summary of my methodology and then an analysis of the current scholarship in the field and how my argument expands on specific scholarly topics. From there, I will proceed to discuss the various ways that K-pop companies maintain control over their K-pop artists. I will then discuss fandom mechanics in K-pop and give an overview as to how K-pop companies aim to build Xiong 4 fandoms in North America. Lastly, I will end with my findings from the interviews and discuss how companies maintain fandom loyalty and the role that livestreaming platforms play in this. Methodology As a part of my research I conducted a review of K-pop news websites and magazine reports. Many of the articles on websites like Soompi and The Korea Herald are written by journalists who are also K-pop fans themselves. Thus, they provide an excellent platform for my research into K-pop fandom mechanics. I also conducted participant observation of the interactions between fans and K-pop idols on V Live. V Live is a livestreaming phone app that many K-pop idols and other celebrities use to communicate with their fans. I chose to center my research of livestreaming platforms around this app due to its popularity within the K-pop community. I observed -- without participating myself -- two livestream sessions and took note of how fans and idols interacted. Many fans left comments in the chat section, posted stickers, and left hearts on the video to show their support. Downloading V Live also allowed me to learn more about certain mechanics of the app such as “Chemi-beat” and other exclusive material the platform provides. For the fan interviews that I conducted, all the interviewees are between the ages of 18- 24. I did not personally know every individual I interviewed beforehand. I first asked to interview two people I knew were K-pop fans due to previous conversations I had had with them. The other three were referred to me by mutual friends. Each of the interviews took place over the phone and were all at least 30-40 minutes in length. Some interviews extended longer than an hour. The phone interview method was used for several reasons, the first being that most of the interviewees reside in areas far from where I live. I did not have the funds to travel and interview them in-person. Additionally, I decided it would be in everyone’s best interest to Xiong 5 practice social distancing due to the COVID-19 Pandemic that was taking place during the interviewing period. The interview pool is on the smaller side, but I believe the small size catered to the purpose of my project rather well since it gave me the time to understand each person better and learn more about their fan experience. Scholarly Background A common area of discussion in the K-pop studies field is how Korean entertainment companies manage and market their idols to appeal to global audiences. John Lie was one of the first scholars to delve into this topic. His book, K-pop: Popular Music, Cultural Amnesia, and Economic Innovation in South Korea, discusses K-pop’s export imperative. He argues that K- pop was made to be exported and that this export-driven culture is one of the key factors to K- pop’s global success.2 He claims that this success is due to K-pop’s long-standing history of companies adapting South Korean singers to particular export markets, an example of which can been seen in how BoA, a female solo artist, was intentionally marketed in a way to appeal to Japanese audiences.3 The scholar Dalyong Jin has expanded upon Lie’s findings. Jin argues that the hybridization process, in the form of linguistic mixing of Korean and English and the fusion of musical genres, is a driving factor in the success of K-pop.4 While he acknowledges the role social media has in expanding K-pop’s sphere of influence, Jin overemphasizes the power of hybridization in K-pop’s success. As Lie points out, K-pop was a hybrid from its inception, but artists such as BoA and Rain failed to have success when they debuted in the United States in 2 John Lie, K-Pop: Popular Music, Cultural Amnesia, and Economic Innovation in South Korea, (California: University of California Press, 2015), 138. 3 Ibid, 114. 4 Dal Yong Jin, New Korean Wave (Illinois: University of Illinois, 2016), 122. Xiong 6 2007 despite the hybridization already present in their music.5 Jin utilizes the term “glocalization” to describe the business strategies Korean entertainment companies use when marketing their K-pop artists in foreign countries. He points out that a driving motto of glocalization, “think globally, act locally,” can be seen in the coproduction of songs by Korean and foreign producers and the way that business will adapt certain products to appeal to a more specific audience.6 For example, SM Entertainment, South Korea’s largest entertainment group, has established local branches in the United States. While I agree with his use of the term “glocalization”, I find that Jin overemphasizes the power of linguistic hybridization and has unintentionally ignored the influence of social media and its effect in garnering a large transnational fandom for K-pop artists.